The Monday After: Fully Devoted: Community, part two {Andrew}

We leave church inspired and filled with Truth and encouragement on Sundays … and somewhere along the course of the week, pieces of the message tend to fade and we often lose that Sunday feeling.

The Monday After {the Sunday Sermon} carries the Sunday message into Monday mornings by sharing how what we’ve heard on Sunday morning is making a difference in our Mondays, our weeks, our lives. Because of your generosity to Accelerate, we are able to share these stories! Thank you!

The Monday After Sunday, September 23, 2013: Fully Devoted: Living in Community, part two {LISTEN HERE!}

by Andrew Kelley

“If we want to show a watching world the love of Christ, we must love each other well.”

Pastor Bryan’s words stood out most from yesterday’s message and have stood out to me for almost a year. But they didn’t hit me today like they did almost a year ago.

God had shown me that what I thought was participation in community actually was me faking my current status. I was hiding behind the “everything is good, I’m just here to worship” facade. I was hiding the fact that my family was struggling financially. I finally gave in and called a couple brothers from Immanuel to meet with them — brothers who I could bare it all to and know they would say what needed to be said.

One of them did correct me in a loving way, and I am so fortunate to call him a friend as well as a brother. I felt better afterward. God had to show me through His community that I had support. I then felt clipped in, like those mountain climbers. It’s funny how we think we can do things by ourselves. In Genesis 2:18, God saw that Adam, perfect in his character and his relationship with Him, should not be alone . God knew Adam and every human being would need another human for support.

During these past several months, God has shown me specific reasons for the community He has called me and my whole family to at this time in our lives. The body of Immanuel has been there for us over and over and over. We have praised God for these blessings in front of other family and friends who don’t attend church, and these people have responded in ways that only make us even more grateful for our community.

Back to my first sentence, focus on the beginning of the quote, “If we want to …” But what if we don’t? What if we don’t want to or what if we don’t care? Perhaps a good deal of believers really don’t want to live in community, don’t want to to show a watching world the love of Christ in that way? I think we then must ask ourselves one important question: “What is our commission in life as Christ followers?”

Jesus said to go into all the world and make disciples. How would we do this without community? How would we do this without love? I strongly believe that just our love for each other will draw people to Christ. I don’t know about you, but I want to be clipped into a group of people who will love me and support me when I am going journeying uphill through the mountains of life.

Because sometimes it gets pretty steep. We can’t climb alone.

Andrew Kelley is husband to Dawn and father to four wonderful children; he and his family currently call Immanuel and Zion home.

Andrew,
Thanks for the honest and transparent post. I’m so glad that you took the risk to be real with the guys in your group. I’m not surprised at all that God has blessed you for doing that. Thanks again for your thoughts!